Warszawska religioznawcza szkoła apologetyczna

Abstract

The notion of Warsaw School of Apologetics was understood by W. Kwiatkowski as a set (collection, system, structure) of critically proved sentences that constitutes an attempt at solving one of the major apologetic issues and which gains – for some considerable time – a substantial number of followers and propagators, until being replaced by another system of sentences. Among the close associates of W. Kwiatkowski and hence the followers of his apologetic thought, we can find such scholars as: Ryszard Paciorkowski, Władysław Hładowski, Jerzy Nosowski, Józef Myśków, Tadeusz Gogolewski, Wojciech Tabaczyński, Edmund Wilemski and others. The apologetics created by the Warsaw School was a new and original proposal of verifying the reliability of claims made by different religions and Christianity in particular. W. Kwiatkowski and his followers divided the apologetics created at the Warsaw Centre into two parts, namely the comparative apologetics, focused on the research verifying the critical value of apologies made by non-Christian religion (demonstratio religiosa) and the total apologetics, with the subject of research narrowed to Christian apologies only and a special focus on the oldest one that is the self-defence of Jesus of Nazareth (demonstratio Christiana et cattolica). The aim of the total apologetics was to thoroughly explain the auto-apology of Jesus of Nazareth as well as to verify it from the axiological angle. The research was to present the historic characteristics of the unique personality of Jesus Christ on the basis of biblical material. The historical analysis combined with psychological methods made it possible to describe and interpret all his religious awareness, both on the individual and on the social level. The individual religious awareness of Jesus of Nazareth was divided into: functional claims (king, prophet, priest, messiah) and genetic claims (the Son of God). Another division concerned the motivational function that is the way of reasoning which was, in tum, divided into argumentation of personalist character (intellect and morality) and of dynamic character (the fulfilment of prophesies and, first of all, the resurrection). The social awareness of Jesus of Nazareth was expressed in the idea of power (authority) of God (the theocratic idea). God is perceived here as the King with his community of God’s Kingdom. Jesus is aware of being the King over the community which is not of this world (cf. J 18:37). He receives the authority from the Most High (cf. Mt 28,18), which he passes over to Peter (cf. Mt 16,19). The theocratic idea implies here the christocratic idea, which in tum implies the petrocratic idea. The total apologetics thus manages to unite the subject matter into one implicative whole. Two theses: the christological and ecclesiological one are united in the person of Jesus Christ, as the highest and normative religious value Sanctum. The christocentric vision of the total apologetics allowed the researchers to analyse the reality of the Church in the unity of its Founder. Moreover, Jesus of Nazareth himself was possible to understand only in the context of the community (the Church – the God’s People) which he gathered around him.